“Well, if this really is from Qaddafi our answer’s simple.” It was Delbert Crandell, the Secretary of Energy. “Lather those bastards from one end of Libya to the other. That’s all. Wipe them out. Lay the Trident missiles on the subs we have on patrol in the Med on them. That’ll turn the damn place into a sea of glass in thirty seconds. There won’t be a goat left alive over there.”
Crandell sank back, satisfied. His words had a cathartic effect on the room. It was as though the outspoken Energy Secretary had given voice to a thought all had had but no one else had been prepared to express, the brutal but reassuring affirmation that, in the final analysis, the United States possessed the power to squash a menace such as this.
“Mr. Fundseth” There was a catch in the President’s voice as he addressed his Deputy Secretary of State, as though he, too, sought to be assured by Crandell’s brutal declaration. “What is the population of Libya?”
“Two million, sir, give or take a hundred thousand. Census figures over there aren’t very reliable.”
The President turned down the table toward the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “Harry, how many people would we lose if a three-megaton device went off in New York? Without evacuation?”
“Sir, it would be difficult to give you an accurate figure on that without looking at some numbers.”
“I realize that, but give me your best estimate.”
The Chairman reflected a moment. “Between four and five million, sir.”
There was dead silence as the awful mathematics of Fuller’s figures registered on everyone in the room. The President sat back, lost for just a minute in a private thought no one in the room dared to interrupt. The giants of the world, the United States and the USSR, held each dither in strategic checkmate because they shared a parity of horror, an equilibrium once described with almost too perfect irony by the acronym for the philosophy on which the U.S.‘s thermonuclear strategy had been based-MAD, for “Mutual Assured Destruction.” I kill you, you kill me. It was the old Russian comedy, everybody dies.
But this, if it was true, was the terrible alteration in the rules of the game, that had haunted responsible world leaders for years, the end game in the struggle against nuclear proliferation for which his precedessor had fought so hard-and, characteristically, with so little success.
Detective First Grade Angelo Rocchia watched with pride the woman advancing through the restaurant, noting approvingly each head that turned for a second glimpse at the lithe movements of her figure. Men always had a second look at Grace Knowland. Her fluffy black hair was clipped in a pageboy bob that set off her higharched cheekbones, her dark eyes and her pert mouth. She was not quite medium height, but she was so well proportioned, so finely muscled, that her clothes, like the simple white blouse and beige skirt she was wearing tonight, always seemed molded to her body. Above all, Grace radiated a fresh, engaging vitality that belied the fact that she was thirtyfive, the mother of a fourteen-year-old boy, and had led a life not noteworthy for its placidity.
“Hi, darling,” she said, brushing his forehead with a quick, moist kiss.
“Not late, am I?”
She slid onto the red velvet seat beside him, right under his favorite oil of the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius. Forlini’s was, as Angelo liked to say, “the kind of place where things transpire.” A few blocks away from City Hall, it bad been for years a favorite hangout of top cops, judges, politicians, men from the DA’s office and minor Mafiosi.
He handed Grace a Campari and soda and raised his Black Label on the rocks to her. Angelo Rocchia drank very little, but he was fastidious about what he drank: “sipping scotch” and good wines, preferably the littleknown Chianti classicos of Tuscany.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers. I hope it wasn’t too difficult.”
Angelo lowered his glass and gave a slight move to his shoulders. “Each time, it’s the same thing. You think it can’t possibly hurt any more and it always does.”
Grace gently folded her hand over his. She had a pianist’s fingers, long, slender and strong, her almond-shaped nails trimmed short.
“What’s hard is making yourself understand there’s no hope.”
Grace saw a flicker of despair cross his face. “Let’s order.” She smiled.
“I’m famished.” Her gaiety was a forced effort to ease Angelo from the depression that inevitably gripped him on Sunday evenings.
“Evening, Inspector. Try the linguine. Terrific.”
Angelo looked up from his menu. Standing before his table was Salvatore “Twenty Percent Sal” Danatello, his corpulent figure bursting out of a pale-blue double-knit at least three sizes too small for him. The detective looked at him, a sneer of contempt easing over his face.
“How’s the family, Sal? Keeping your nose clean?”
The change in Angelo’s tone, the abrupt switch from the soft, intimate half-growl he used with her to this inquisitor’s voice, its timbre as cold, as cutting as a knife’s blade, always disturbed Grace.
“Sure thing, Inspector. You know me. Running a legitimate business. Payin’ my tax.”
“Terrific, Sally. You’re just the kind of decent, upright citizen this city needs.”
Sally hesitated a moment, hoping for the introduction Angelo had no intention whatsoever of making, then shufed off.
“Who’s that?” Grace asked.
“A wise guy.”
Grace understood the jargon of the New York Police Department. She watched the Mafioso’s disappearing figure with curiosity. “So it wasn’t his wife and kids you were asking about. What does he do?”
“Knows good lawyers. Been busted three times for loan sharking and walked every time.” Angelo snapped a breadstick in half and jabbed one jagged end into the butter dish before him. A sly grin crossed his face.
“Of course, The New York Times would say it was just another example of how we waste our resources prosecuting nonviolent crimes.”
Grace pressed her finger to her lips like a schoolteacher trying to hush an unruly classroom. “Truce?” It was a little sign between them, a convention they employed whenever the deeply held convictions inspired by their different vocations, hers as a City Hall reporter for the Times, his as a detective, clashed.
“Yeah, sure,” growled Angelo. “Truce. What the hell, The New York Times is probably right anyway. Sally’s collectors got a special, nonviolent way they clean up his bad debts.” ‘
Despite herself, Grace fell for his ploy with an inquiring tilt of her head.
“They put your fingers in a car door. Then they close the door.”
Angelo savored the horror sweeping her face just an instant. “It’s like the ad says. The man runs a full service bank.”
She couldn’t help laughing. He was a born actor, this detective of hers, with his Roman emperor’s profile, and his wavy gray hair that always made her think of Vittorio de Sica; hair she knew he had styled once a month to conceal the bald spot emerging at the back of his head.
They had met two years ago in his Homicide Squad office at 1 Police Plaza when Grace was doing a major takeout on violent crime in the city. With his dark suit, his white-on-white tie and shirt, the way he rolled his rs like a tenor at the Met, he had seemed closer to her idea of what a Mafia don should look like than a detective. She had noted the old-fashioned black mourning button in the lapel of his jacket, the nervous way he kept picking peanuts from his pocket. To stop smoking, he had explained.
For almost a year they had met for an occasional dinner every couple of weeks, nothing more binding between them than their deepening friendship.